Panama City

Krawietz knocking on the door of the top 100

The tennis professional from Witzmannsberg finished second in Panama and continues his climb up the doubles world rankings. The 25-year-old is delighted at his good start to the clay court season.

At the Panama Tennis Cup, Kevin Krawietz managed to get among the best 32 in the singles and, in the doubles, he and his Spanish partner Adrián Menéndez-Maceiras reached the final, only to lose narrowly. Kevin Krawietz has thus moved up 12 places in the doubles world rankings of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) to a best-ever 116th position and is loudly knocking on the door of the top 100. Krawietz started the qualification for the singles with a bye and went on to defeat the Colombian Gonzalo Ramirez Cumaco 6:3, 6:3 in the second round. In the final of the qualification, he came up against Mohamed Safwat, ranked number 195 in the world. Kevin Krawietz played with focus and almost without mistakes from the beginning. He took the first set 6:4 and was again a break up in the second and leading 4:3 when his Egyptian opponent gave up due to the heat. In the main field, Krawietz was drawn against the number five seed Bjorn Fratangelo from the United States, ranked number 112 in the world. This time it was Krawietz who did not feel one hundred percent and did not play as well as he could in temperatures of 35 degrees. He lost the match by 2:6, 2:6. “A pity, more would have been possible if I hadn’t suffered from giddy spells now and again,” says the annoyed 1.90 meter player after the match.

In the doubles, Krawietz and his partner Menéndez-Maceiras came up against the favorites and number one seeds Oliver Marach (Austria) and Julio Peralta (Chile) right in the first round. The unseeded duo put up very stiff resistance against Marach (36th in the doubles world rankings) and Peralta (46th in the doubles world rankings) and played almost without error to take the first set 7:5. The second was fiercely contested and the underdogs lost it in the tie-break by 3:7. The super tie-break had to decide the match. Krawietz/Menéndez-Maceiras dominated it to win 10:7 and advance to the next round. They won their next match against Christopher O’Connell (Australia) and Mohamed Safwat (Egypt) by 6:0, 6:1. In the semi-final, they faced off against the number four seeds Ariel Behar (Uruguay) and Fabiano De Paula (Brazil). The German/Spanish duo also controlled this match, taking it 6:2, 6:4 to claim a place in the final. It seemed that their dominance of the competition would continue there, as they romped to a 6:1 victory in the first set against the third seeds Sergio Galdós (Peru) and Caio Zampieri (Brazil). However, they then lost the plot and went down by 6:8 in the tie-break in the second set. They were then also defeated in the super tie-break by 7:10. Nevertheless, the duo were happy with second place in Panama in their first-ever tournament playing together.